TradesBuilders

Build the Business, Not Just the HouseFixed price contracts, thin margins and slow progress claims are a business problem, not a building problem.

This is for the licensed builder who owns the company: the one signing fixed price contracts, carrying the cost escalation, chasing progress claims and holding the licence. Everything here is about running the building business properly, so the jobs stop running you.

Have a chat with Greg

A painted scene of a timber framed house on its slab with the roof trusses up, builders working along the top plate against an open sky

The week this is about

Running A Building Business Looks Like This.

The fixed price you signed eleven months ago

Timber and steel moved after you signed. The client holds a contract with a fixed number on it and no interest in your supplier invoices. You wear the difference, job after job, and it comes straight out of the margin you priced.

Variations done on a handshake at the site

The client asked for the extra window while you stood in the mud. You did it. Now the final claim is disputed, and under the NSW Home Building Act and QBCC rules a variation must be written and signed before you can enforce it.

Sunday night doing the claim schedule again

Lock-up went through on Thursday. The claim should have been out Friday. Instead you are at the kitchen table pricing next week's job, working out who chases the plasterer, and the invoice from the frame supplier is due on Monday.

Stay there and you keep building other people's homes on your own overdraft, until the day a single bad job takes the licence with it.

A trade business owner working alone at the kitchen table late at night, laptop open and paperwork spread across the table, work boots and tool bag by the door

How we help

Seven Ways We Help Builders.

Every one of these is a way building business owners get out from under the business and start running it properly. Start wherever it hurts most.

Training

Builder Business Training

Structured training that turns what builders know on the tools into a business that runs properly.

Coaching

Builder Business Coaching

Greg Allan in your corner, holding builders to the plan. By application.

Systems

Builder Business Systems

The documented process that lets the work happen properly when builders are not standing there.

The free app

Builder Business App

Lessons, tools and a room full of other owners, free for builders with an active ABN.

Marketing and leads

Builder Business Marketing

How builders get the phone ringing with the jobs worth having, not just the cheap ones.

Pricing and profit

Builder Business Pricing

The number builders should actually be charging, worked out properly rather than guessed.

Hiring and team

Builder Business Hiring

How builders build a crew that does it right without being watched.

A trade business owner watching his child play sport on a Saturday morning, coffee in hand and phone face down — Nights and weekends back

A trade business owner and his partner in the kitchen looking at a tablet showing the numbers going up — Work that actually pays

A trade business owner shaking hands with a new apprentice in the work yard — A good hire who stays

A trade business owner standing calmly in the yard while his crew load two utes behind him — Out of the middle of everything

Worth knowing

Two Things Every Builder Running A Business Should Know.

Construction accounted for 2,832 company insolvencies in FY2023-24, roughly 27 percent of all Australian company collapses, the highest of any industry.

Source: UNSW Sydney, construction insolvency analysis

A Queensland builder in financial category SC1 must hold at least $12,000 in net tangible assets, and SC2 at least $46,000, or the licence itself is at risk.

Source: QBCC, Minimum Financial Requirements

Why you get me

I built the coaching company everyone else runs. Then I took it apart.

Most coaching companies work the same way. You enquire, you get a salesperson. You sign up, you get a coach who has never run a trade business.

I know, because I built one. I grew the Academy to 35 staff, a CEO and 15 coaches. It ran without me.

And I hated it. The bigger it got, the further I was from the owners I started it for.

What gets me up in the morning is getting under the hood of a trade business and helping the owner hit their goals in the least time possible.

So I restructured the whole thing.

When you enquire, you speak to me. If you are accepted into the Academy, you work with me. Directly.

And with agentic AI, the results come sooner than most owners can imagine.

Places are limited. I only take on owners who are committed and ready to do the work.

Greg Allan mid-explanation with his hands open, talking to a trade business owner across a desk

Who you will be talking to

I built Response Electricians in Perth into a 30+ staff business with more than 1,950+ five-star reviews.

A general manager runs it day to day. I live in Byron Bay.

I have trained 9,000+ trade business owners across Australia and New Zealand.

What AI actually changes

The old way. The new way.

Illustration: a trade business owner standing over three office staff buried in paperwork at night. — The old way
More customers meant more people doing your computer work, and you paying for all of it.

Illustration: a tradesman shaking hands with a homeowner in her driveway, his phone showing jobs quoted and invoiced. — The new way
You stay with your customers and your team. Agents run the office your way.

The old way

Grow, then hire people to do the computer work.

Every new customer brought more quoting, invoicing, chasing, scheduling and reporting.

So you hired people to do it. Office staff, bookkeepers, admin.

None of it is billable, and every hire costs wages, sick leave and another person to manage.

Profit and time only grew as fast as you could add people.

The new way

Keep the human work. Give everything else to agents.

Your people do what only people can do: looking after customers and leading the team.

Everything else goes to agents that do it your way, instantly, any time it is needed.

No sick leave. No capacity problems. They scale as far as the business does.

So the only people you add are the ones facing your customers and your team.

A human-centred business that runs on systems you build in minutes. Nobody still running the old way can compete with it.

9,000+tradies trained4.9★Google rating4.9★App Store rating

Questions

Builders Ask Us These.

What licence do I need before I can contract building work?

It depends on your state and the value of the work. Queensland requires a QBCC licence above $3,300, New South Wales above $5,000 and Victoria registration above $10,000. Cert IV in Building and Construction is the usual qualification pathway. In New Zealand it is the national Licensed Building Practitioner scheme for restricted building work. Getting licensed is step one, running it profitably is what we train.

How long does it take to get a builders licence?

It varies sharply by state. Queensland is around five months minimum through QBCC once experience and financial evidence are assembled, while New South Wales can be roughly eight weeks. The paperwork is not the hard part. The hard part is having a business behind the licence that can carry the jobs it lets you sign, which is what the training and working with Greg build.

Do I need home warranty insurance on every job?

Not every job, but the thresholds are low. New South Wales requires HBCF cover through icare on residential work over $20,000, Queensland's Home Warranty Scheme starts above $3,300 with the contractor paying the premium, and Victoria requires VMIA domestic building insurance over $16,000. New Zealand has no compulsory scheme, only optional guarantees such as Master Build. Your eligibility limit is set by your financials.

Which edition of the National Construction Code applies to my homes right now?

NCC 2022 still governs residential work, including the 7-star NatHERS energy rating and the livable housing provisions. Residential NCC changes are paused to mid-2029, and New South Wales has announced it will adopt the next code in May 2027. NCC 2025 changes are mostly commercial. New Zealand runs its own Building Code, not the NCC. Knowing which rules bite is part of costing a job properly.

Other trades

See all twelve trades

A painted scene of a trade business owner home before dark, sitting on the tray of his ute while his son runs to meet him

Have a Chat With Greg About Your Business.